Valve Releasing Free Movie-Making Tool

This is the Source Filmmaker. It lets you use your PC to create animated short films. And it's entirely free.

This is the tool that Valve used to create all nine of its "Meet the Team" short films. Will yours be as hilarious? Only time will tell.

"The goal of the SFM was to develop a story telling tool that allowed us to create computer animated movies more efficiently, and with greater creative freedom," said Valve designer Bay Raitt in a press release today. "Over the past five years, we've produced more than 50 animated shorts with the SFM. The Source Filmmaker will allow our community to create their own movies in Team Fortress 2 and in their own Source SDK-created mods."

"Allowed us to create computer animated movies more efficiently..."
Is that why it's taken five years for nine 3-minute movies to be released?
I'm kidding, I'm sure they spent a fair bit of time optimising the various tools and experimenting with effects while still making it flexible enough for any project and accessible enough for a layman.

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